Cameron M. Knapp

Impact of Defects in Powder Feedstock Materials on Microstructure of 304L and 316L Stainless Steel Produced by Additive Manufacturing

Recent work in both 304L and 316L stainless steel produced by additive manufacturing (AM) has shown that in addition to the unique, characteristic microstructures formed during the process, a fine dispersion of sub-micron particles, with a chemistry different from either the powder feedstock or the expected final material, are evident in the final microstructure. Such fine-scale features can only be resolved using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) or similar techniques. The present work uses electron microscopy to study both the initial powder feedstock and microstructures in final AM parts. Special attention is paid to the chemistry and origin of these nanoscale particles in several different metal alloys, and their impact on the final build. Comparisons to traditional, wrought material will be made.

Structure/Property Behavior of Additively Manufactured (AM) Materials: Opportunities and Challenges

The certification and qualification paradigms required for additively manufactured (AM) metals and alloys must evolve given the absence of any broadly accepted “ASTM- or DIN-type” AM certification/qualification processes or fixed AM-material produced specifications. This is in part due to the breath of the evolved microstructures produced across the spectrum of AM manufacturing technologies including powder bed and directed energy systems. Accordingly, design and microstructure optimization, manufacture, and thereafter implementation and insertion of AM-produced materials to meet the wide range of engineering applications requires detailed quantification of the structure/property behavior of AM-materials, across the spectrum of metallic AM methods, in comparison/contrast to conventionally-manufactured metals and alloys. The scope of this talk is a discussion of some present opportunities and challenges to achieving qualification and certification of AM produced metals and alloys for engineering applications.

Defect Detection in LENS AM Using In Situ Thermal Camera Process Monitoring

This study utilizes in situ thermal imaging to monitor the melt pool during a LENS additive manufacturing (AM) process. A software tool is created which gathers metrics for each frame and summarizes them over every build. Plotted metrics allow a user to visually inspect the data, but the software tool also automatically identifies anomalies and flags them for further review. Anomalies are then correlated to physical locations in the build which are inspected for defects. This type of process monitoring could lead to fast detection of defects during a build, thus increasing the confidence in production quality and eliminating the acceptance of parts with abnormalities. An anomalous event was identified by the software tool and investigated with X-ray computed tomography. Defects were observed in the location identified by the software tool.